Dayhoff Westminster Soundtrack: US budget sequester

Showing posts with label US budget sequester - sequestration. Show all posts

Thursday, April 11, 2013

FOXBusiness Obama Unveils 2014 Budget Proposal - By Kathryn Buschman Vasel

Obama Unveils 2014 Budget Proposal

Published April 10, 2013

FOXBusiness Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2013/04/10/obama-budget-targets-millionaires-replaces-sequester-cuts/

The budget battle on Capitol Hill heated up Wednesday as President Barack Obama released his budget for fiscal 2014 that aims to find middle ground to progress long-stalled budget negations.

The president's budget includes 215 proposals to cut spending, will raise $680 billion in new tax revenues and reduce future deficits by $600 billion over 10 years. The White House says the president's plan includes $1.8 trillion in deficit reduction, replacing the $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts poised to take effect over the next 10 years.

The budget aims to find middle ground between the dueling parties by including reductions to popular entitlements, which doesn’t sit well with Democrats, as well as Republican-loathed tax increases.

"My budget will reduce our deficits by nearly another 2-trillion dollars so that, all told, we will have surpassed the goal of 4-trillion dollars in deficit reduction that independent economists believe we need to stabilize our finances," the president said in the Rose Garden on Wednesday.

Read the president's budget here

Medicare and Social Security face cuts under the president’s budget, which has drawn criticism from members of his own party…

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Wednesday, March 13, 2013

President Obama: The sky is falling March 13, 2013 by Kevin E. Dayhoff

http://www.thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=5670

Almost two weeks have gone by since the so-called “sequester” of the federal budget went into effect and all indications lead us to believe that the Zombie Apocalypse has not happened. Nor has it otherwise resulted in the end of the world as we know it.

Remember the sequester? It was the key and critical provision of the Budget Control Act of 2011, which took effect on March 1.

According to Dylan Matthews on March 1, 2013, in The Washington Post:

“The 2013 sequester includes: $42.7 billion in defense cuts (a 7.9 percent cut); $28.7 billion in domestic discretionary cuts (a 5.3 percent cut); $9.9 billion in Medicare cuts (a 2 percent cut); $4 billion in other mandatory cuts (a 5.8 percent cut to nondefense programs, and a 7.8 percent cut to mandatory defense programs).”

According to a number of astute political observers, including Chris Cillizza, also of The Washington Post, the sequester may very well have been over-hyped by a president who is not used to media scrutiny.

Mr. Cillizza wrote in “Did President Obama cry wolf on the sequester,” “In the days leading up to the March 1 sequester deadline, dire warnings about its impact were being issued daily from President Obama. Lines at airports would be interminable. First responders would be compromised. Things would be, in a word, bad.”

At my advanced age, I can easily recognize political silliness when I see it.

According to Media Research Center’s Brent Baker, who wrote in an article titled, “Krauthammer: Obama on Charm Offensive Because ‘Media Could No Longer Cover for Him,’” “Charles Krauthammer credited President Obama’s charm offensive toward Republicans to his losing the news media which couldn’t any longer abide his ridiculous sequester ‘cut’ exaggerations.

Mr. Baker is the vice president for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog organization and think tank.

President Obama’s strongest constituency, which, according to Dr., Krauthammer, “is not the left, it’s the mainstream media, could no longer cover for him without being entirely embarrassed,” Krauthammer observed last Friday night on the Fox News Channel, “It had to expose the one exaggeration after another on the sequester.”

Dr. Krauthammer went on to observe that … http://www.thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=5670

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Wednesday, March 06, 2013

The Tentacle: How I learned to love the sequester by Kevin E. Dayhoff Mar 6, 2013 http://tinyurl.com/a4s5zu8

The Tentacle: How I learned to love the sequester by Kevin E. Dayhoff Mar 6, 2013

http://www.thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=5658

Last Friday, March 1, the much ballyhooed and overhyped “sequester” of the federal budget began. A key and critical provision of the Budget Control Act of 2011, sequestration was signed into law on August 2, 2011 by President Barack Obama.

In August 2011 “bipartisan majorities in both the House of Representatives and Senate voted for sequestration as a mechanism to compel the Congress to act on deficit reduction,” according to a March 1, 2013 Office of Management and Budget memo to Speaker of the House, John A. Boehner (R., OH).

The letter further detailed that “As a result of the Congress's failure to act, the law requires the President to issue a sequestration order today canceling $85 billion in budgetary resources across the Federal Government for FY 2013…”

This latest artificial governance-by-crisis has been unfolding for a number of weeks – err, months… http://www.thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=5658

Labels: Pres 2009 44 Obama admin,US budget sequester - sequestration, US budget spending, US Congress, US Congress fiscal discipline,

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Tuesday, March 05, 2013

The Farm Credit Council “The Insider”: USDA Faces 5% Cut Due to Sequester; FCA Exempt

An article in The Farm Credit Council “The Insider, reports:

http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-farm-credit-council-insider-usda.html

Labels: Ag Farm Credit Council, Ag Farm Credit Council The Insider, Pres 2009 44 Obama admin,US budget sequester - sequestration, US budget spending, US Congress, US Congress fiscal discipline, US Dept of Ag

The White House late last week issued its orders for the sequester cuts, which includes a reduction of approximately 5% for USDA for the remainder of fiscal 2013. The cuts are to take place over seven months and amount to about 13% from defense spending and 9% from non-defense programs.

The plan calls for furloughs of meat inspectors for the Federal Safety and Inspection Service. FSIS is expected to reduce its spending by about $53 million out of a $1.05 billion budget. Commodity programs are to be cut by $329 million and disaster spending is to be reduced by about $70 million.

USDA Secretary Vilsack said the budget cuts could disrupt the agricultural economy by as much as $8 billion, affecting as many as 60,000 jobs, and could prevent as much as $35 million in USDA loans being made to as many as 1,500 farmers.

Vilsack added that USDA is prepared to continue distributing direct payments and is committed to giving farmers in the Average Crop Revenue Election program options to stay in or withdraw from ACRE.

“Sequester may impact the amount of payments, but I don't think it will affect whether people get payments,” Vilsack said. He added that he believes it would be difficult for Congress to reduce or modify direct payments this year, either in response to the sequester or as part of a new farm bill.

The Senate last week failed to pass either of two competing bills to address the sequester. The plan favored by Senate Democrats, urged by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) would have included a number of cuts to agriculture spending, including elimination of direct payments. Chairwoman Stabenow said this would spare agriculture from a new round of sequestration cuts in the future.

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-OK) said it was disappointing that the Senate failed to pass a replacement, but that he was pleased that the Reid-Stabenow plan was rejected because it would have unfairly targeted agriculture.

“The agriculture portion of their proposal called for a 50 percent cut to a single title in the farm bill that accounts for six percent of overall agriculture spending and less than one percent of overall federal spending,” Chairman Lucas said.

Complicating the picture for a new farm bill is the fact that the current continuing resolution funding government operations is set to expire March 27. Without an extension or a replacement, the federal government will be unable to spend money to keep certain operations running. House Republicans are expected to introduce their plan this week for extending routine government spending through September, the end of the current fiscal year.

In addition, the Congressional Budget Office last week released new estimates substantially downgrading the promised savings from the House and Senate farm bills.

The report says the Senate-passed farm bill would save only $13.1 billion over 10 years, compared with a promised $23.1 billion last July. The House Agriculture Committee plan would save $26.6 billion compared with $35.1 billion estimated last year.

The Farm Credit Administration is exempt from the cuts required by the sequester. Because FCA’s funding comes from assessments paid by Farm Credit System institutions and not from appropriated funds, FCA’s budget will not be reduced.

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